"And I'm learning, so I'm leaving

And even though I'm grieving,

I'm still trying to find the meaning.

Let loss reveal it..."

- Florence + the Machine

St. Jude

see you in seaside

last weekend i went on an early birthday get away 
with my two closest friends to seaside.

cruising down Highway 101 with taylor swift
dresses, sunnies, and i'm wearing cami's hat
also, i drew on a beauty mark because why not?

raspberry pie at sweet basil in canon beach
there was a live band and they sang me happy birthday :)

the sea!
it was surprisingly lovely for seaside in april
we came here last memorial day and we lucked out both times
and #sorrynotsorry for my compounding navy polk-a-dot patterns (thank you, target)

just for a comparison shot, here we are last year
#whydoesntanyonewannadancewithus
i love seeing how our hairs have changed...
but some things haven't.

so grateful for these friends
we are each really different and yet we get each other
it is unbelievably wonderful to be accepted entirely as you are - no judging!

isn't cami just too adorable back in her hat?    ^
v    and beks smile in the upper left

i love that we can be classy... and silly
the bottom right is us and our emperor palpatine hoods

and she bought us best friend t-shirts that are so accurate!
sorry if i don't look as enthusiastic as i felt...
we kinda partied-hardied the night before and zzzzz...

thank you, ladies, for such a wonderful weekend away!
i just feel so lucky to have you. lovoo!

Also.....

I'M SO

FREAKING

EXCITED!!!!

I feel like a lot of my favorite web series have wrapped up or are on hiatus... But! I have at least one mainstay to see me through right now and that is:  From Mansfield with Love.  I mentioned it briefly here, but now I can do one better.  The creators just released their own trailer:

I hope this hooks you and that, if it does, you'll share your thoughts below :)

Holy Saturday

I hope you are having a mindful and grace-filled Holy Week...

I wanted to share just a few things I've been meditating on--especially during the dark in-between-ness of Christ Crucified and Christ Resurrected.

I love what Micah J. Murray has written here on Good Friday.  In this prose-poem, "God is Dead," he explores the decimating reality of when God was dead.  The women and the Beloved Disciple at the cross must have held hope till the very last that He who could heal and He who could command the seas could and would rescue himself.  But no.  "It is finished" was the crushing blow to such hopes.  Murray writes:

Of course the earth shook when the breath that had formed mankind slipped from the lungs of the very One who first spoke it all into existence. I wonder that mountains and oceans and planets and stars didn’t all plummet together into an infinite void of darkness, when the hands that had molded them fell limp and lifeless, pierced and broken. 

“God is dead...”

And on this day, we don't get to rush ahead to the happy ending.  On this day we identify with the finality of hope lost.  And in this moment, I understand the words that my soul so often pushes against when TS Eliot said:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

- East Coker  

In so doing, we empathize with those who have lost hope in their own lives.  At the beginning of Lent, I read this beautiful reflection by Josh Ross who pointed out that, this year, Holy Saturday falls on the same day as the anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.  As he so wonderfully puts it:

I think—as for now—April 4th belongs on the Saturday after Good Friday and before Easter Sunday. It is the day that adequately describes where we are in race relations today throughout our world...
Saturday is where we often live. It is the day of questioning, doubt, anxiety, and confusion. There is an awkwardness about Saturday; an uncertainty of how exactly this story is going to pan out.
Race in America is not where it was. Yet, it also isn’t where it needs to be. We can’t go back to the days of utter darkness, despair, oppression, and striping certain groups of dignity, yet we also can’t pretend as if we have arrived at somewhere we have not.

Holy Saturday reminds us that far too many areas of our world have yet to experience Resurrection.

And yet, today I have been reading Lady Julian of Norwich and exploring the notion of felix culpa--literally "happy fall." St. Augustine said of this notion: "Melius enim iudicavit de malis benefacere quam mala nulla esse permittere."  Or, in English, "For God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist."

Holy Saturday means Christ is in the tomb and hope seems vain, "but all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well..."

Grad School: Term 2 of 6

First week of the term: 

Last week of the term:

Hi!  Just a little late-night update on my final papers...

So yesterday I submitted my 2nd grad paper on the Lizzie Bennet Diaries - I still can't believe they let me do that.  I was writing about it for a film class, applying theories of form, gender, and reception.  It seemed a bit messy even when I turned it in, but it did give me some ideas I want to expand into my thesis project :)

I'm now working on a really interesting paper going in all sorts of crazy directions: Victorian standardization of time, Hesiod's socieconomic perspective in Works and Days, postcolonial theory, Hamlet, a bit of Foucault, and Odysseus's sirens... I told my brother: "Right now they're like a bunch of sheep running in different directions and I need to become Babe! #BahRamEwe" I'm about 1/3 of the way there and it is pretty fun.  The text I'm working with is also a favorite--"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

But now I should get some rest so I can scribble out some more good ideas tomorrow. Bonne nuit!

:)

This does my dead-week soul good.

This is happening :D

It is based on the paper I wrote last term.  Here is the abstract:

Adaptation Theo(re-) and The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

My paper examines the current environment of adaptation studies as applied to new media forms of storytelling.  Evolving from a word vs. image debate, the adaptation theories produced by Robert Stam and Linda Hutcheon are opening a space for dialogic exploration, with Hutcheon suggesting adaptation is about “repetition, but repetition without replication.”  Both suggest that the aim of re-telling a story is not direct translation, but re-interpretation and re-creation, and are interested in viewing these re-creations as palimpsest, investigating how adaptation allows people to see the original work in a new way.

After a review of the shift in adaptation perspectives, this paper turns to look at The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a transmedia retelling of Pride and Prejudice set as a vlog in modern day California.  Across platforms including YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest, this Emmy-award winning web series spent a year re-working the 200-year-old novel in “real-time.”  While completely re-interpreting certain concerns—the Bennet’s entailed estate is now a faulty mortgage; Collins “proposal” is for a job, not a marriage—the creators of this series simply update others.  In this paper and PowerPoint presentation, I argue that far from detracting from the core narrative, these changes were made in order to better explore the question at the core of both Jane Austen’s novel and the web series.

In the final turn of my paper, I examine how centering the climax of the story on their interpretation of the Lydia-Wickham scandal, the creators of this series take Lizzie’s empathetic lesson a step further, extending her repentance to include both her misunderstanding of Darcy and of a fully realized Lydia Bennet.  In doing so, they not only work against stereotype, but also encourage viewers to re-examine their assumption of Pride and Prejudice, creating the type of palimpsestuous learning moment adaptation studies strive for. 

loving love

Today I was studying in Starbucks and within an hour, they played:

• "Wandering Back" by Sucre
• "Emphasis" by Sleeping at Last
• "Tongues of Fire" by John Mark McMillan

The rest of the day has been pretty decent, too... but those favorites were in close succession and made me feel like I had won some sort of award :) 

"Someday, I want to own a U-Park lot... just so I can spell it correctly."

- things 11 tells me

on Valentine's Day

in Portland

Haiku for a rainy day...

I may have grown up 

but I still play hopscotch, all

alone with puddles. 

"Aw, you're wearing a different scarf! Babe, I'm so proud of you!"

- things 11 tells me

especially after I fixate

on a new scarf for too long

Birthday Blog Day!!

[via]

Today marks six on the blog. It's a special place and I'm happy to share it with you :)

"I have been tense lately. Just thinking about the new star wars sequel. I’m worried they’ll rely too heavily on CGI and I’m carrying it all in my shoulders."

Ben Wyatt gets me.

Currently watching...

Being that it's my passion, I feel a compulsion to every once in a while update you on the web series I'm following.  I'm really happy that there seems to be a pretty constant flurry of activity in this exploding format--new projects starting up, others finishing one season and pursuing funding for another, etc.  So in the midst of the many that I hear about, here are the series I've been watching over the last few months:

Title: Classic Alice
Creators: Kate Hackett
About: "It chronicles Alice Rackham's life -- lived according to classic literature."  See my review of Season 1 here.  Season 2 just wrapped and stories included: Pygmalion, "The Butterfly," Macbeth, "Rip Van Winkle," The Wind in the Willows, and A Christmas Carol.  Whew! Range.
Of all the adapted web series I've watched this one has been the most innovative and also--with funding--could be the most sustainable. They are currently campaigning for funding and would so appreciate your support!

Status: Finished Season 2, campaigning for Season 3

Title: In Earnest
Creators:  Taryn Cole, Carly Straight, and Rachel Pullen
About: "'In Earnest' is a modern, web series adaptation of Oscar Wilde's famous play, 'The Importance of Being Earnest.'"  This is a quite delightful rendition of this story set at an East Coast University.  I am amazed how seamlessly Wilde's 120 year old wit can be repeated word-for-word today.  Favorite performance is John Laurie as Algernon Moncrieff

Status: Current.  New videos air Wednesdays and Saturdays

Title: Elinor and Marianne take Barton
Creators: Emily Nabney and Olivia Cole
About: "'Elinor and Marianne Take Barton' is an updated online adaptation of Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, produced, filmed and created by students at the University of Warwick (England)." I'm aware there are a couple S&S adaptations going on currently; this has felt the most life-like to me.  It's also delightful to finally watch a web-series based off a British book created and performed by British people :D

Status: Current.  New videos air Friday (usually)

Title: From Mansfield with Love
Creators: Foot in the Door Theatre
About: "'From Mansfield With Love' is a modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park." Another British series!  The pretense under which we get these videos is, I think, a perfect set up.  Though I found neither Frances O'Conner (1999) nor Billie Piper (2007) convincing as Fanny Price, Holly Truslove seems to have struck a balance.

Status: Current.  New videos air Wednesday and Sundays

Other series I'm aware of, but haven't checked out yet:
March Family Letters
East and West
Carmilla
Green Gables Fables
The Misselthwaite Archives

Are there others you've been watching? Any of these look particularly interesting to you?  Any I should review? :)

Addendum to yesterday's post...

So I was, in fact, sitting in a cafe reading a novel.  This guy sat down not far from me and asked what I was reading.  I told him; we exchanged banter...as you do.  After a bit, he told me, "You do realize, of course, that you're a quirky girl with short brown hair reading in a coffee shop? Like, you know you are that archetype, right?"

Haha, yes I do.  Thank you for noticing :)

Grad school for Literature... 

Expectation: 

Sitting in a cafe reading a novel

Reality (most of the time):

Reading tons of essays by people like Adorno & other critics. 

But sometimes, I get lucky. Right now... I'm sitting in a cafe reading a novel. 

In particular, I'm starting into James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, where his character Stephan Dedalus originated. It's known for being a bit challenging as Dedalus narrates in stream-of-consciousness. But, funny enough, I can kind of follow it for one reason: Andrew Scott. 

Now Scott did a BBC radio drama of Ulysses a few years back (which I've tried getting into twice, but someday I'll prevail!) and he played Dedalus. But it's not his role from Joyce's more famous novel that's helping me. It's actually his performance from the short Seawall. It's a one man film that Scott narrates on his own. But all of this adds up to one thing: reading Portrait, I can't help but hear Scott's voice. :)

Listening lately...

All y'all can keep 1-D.  I just can't stop listening to Collabro - a bit more my type of "boy band."

It's that time of year...

That time when fantastic, dark, and strange movies are coming out, when Tina & Amy brush off the jokes, when artists make us tear up in 90 second speeches, and when...

...there are pretty dresses all around!!!

I'm sorry, I'm just totally still a little girl who loves dress up :D  Here are just a few of my favorite looks from tonight's Globes:

[Emma Stone looking fierce]

[Long time favorite, Felicity Jones is just lovely]

[Julia Goldani Telles seemed like a work of art]

[11 year old Oscar and Golden Globe Nominee, Quevenzhane Wallis looked darling]

And cutest couple (and soon to be trio!!) goes to:

[Benedict & Sophie - seriously how? Cumberbaby is already a gene pool winner!]

Ok... just a few of my favorites - what say you?

New Year | New Term

Hello and Happy New Year!

Classes start back up tomorrow and I just thought I'd share with you the banner I curated for my class site's banner:

[Groot and Rocket, Adventure in the Great Wide Somewhere, and Always]

My theme this term is again "The Rhetoric of Fans, Fandom, and Fanatics," and I just thought this fan art was a beautiful demonstration.  

Now I'm turning in to help reset my internal clock, which is still on "break time."  Bonsoir and happy new term :)

Finally watched To Kill a Mockingbird this weekend... some 10 years after reading the novel for the first time (my review here).  It was astonishingly beautiful!  But I most wanted to share this exquisite opening:

The music, the creative shots, the panning, the san-serif block titles... the whole thing strikes me as incredible for 1962!  I feel like Wes Anderson must have been very inspired by this opening--kinda makes me wish he'd do a black and white film.  Anyway, I thought I would just share that one with you.  

Seattle Day

I'm on break, but my boyfriend has to work...an hour and a half away.  So today, when I wanted to visit downtown Seattle, I decided to "take him along" by sending him pics of all the different steps of my adventure - including some of my favorite places.

Step one: Mercury's chai. Always

[Hello, my old frenemy]

Ok, so this is where I got off, but it is also pretty significant for our relationship.  The day I met my boyfriend, he offered to walk me to the bus. It was raining slightly, we got to this covered gate area and stood talking for quite a while about arts and faith.  I watched my bus come, I watched my bus go, I kept talking to this cute boy I had just met.  At one point in the conversation, he leaned against the gate, not realizing it isn't secured, and totally got off balance.  And I took it as a bit of a sign that, as I hoped, this fella may like me.  Turns out...he did :)

The room where we met!

Then I visited the Sheraton's famous Gingerbread Village.  Here was an incredible Seattle replica, complete with a motorized Great Wheel.

Here's another, I loved the Seahawk Crane with a 12th Man Flag, Mrs. Seahawk, and Hawk's nest.

Another had this ode to Up :')

"Typical Tourist" moment

The back side of the Market

And the wheel we took on our first date...

I can't visit the market without a stop to Le Panier

Cafe time calls for a journal moment

And then, after a secret little stop, it was time for a visit to the impressive Seattle Public Library.

Just a few different angles of the library.

I brought my current read...

One more angle from outside...

And then it was back home.
I've missed Seattle, and it was lovely to reconnect with some familiar spots.
Next time, I hope to get some more exploring in to discover new ones.

Grad School: Term 1 of 6

Orientation Week, before the term:

Last week of the term:

I survived my first term of grad work and you guys... I love school!

Teaching is a lot of work, but has been very rewarding thus far. 

I've produced two essays on adaptation that I am proud of,

and that my professors have encouraged me in pursuing further.

I've said this before, but... grad school is hard.

But if I'm going to do something hard, I want it to be what I love.

And I really love school.